


Holding On

by Mohini



Series: Sisters [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, Familial Abuse, Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 21:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mohini/pseuds/Mohini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They call it the Black Curse, and I know it is coming for me. I can feel it creeping beneath the surface, barely held in check by the potions I take in excess. All I need to do is hold on for one more summer, and then she will be safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding On

                I stare at my reflection in the mirror, taking in the too-pale skin and the sunken cheeks. My hair is limp against my face, the curls that have long marked me slicked down with a heavy handed grooming charm. They are too noticeable, those curls, and when I go to the Muggle clubs, I straighten them until they are as slick and fine as baby Cissa’s blonde cornsilk. I oughtn’t call her that, but the name I uttered when she was first shown to me in Mother’s rooms has clung tightly to my thoughts of her. If ever we are old and grey, I imagine she will still be a baby to me.

                Andi is beside me, her arm around my waist holding me on my feet. I know I had far too much of the clear burning liquid the Muggles call vodka. I had to practically crawl into her rooms this morning, shortly before dawn when we returned from the clubs. We joke that we are slumming, mingling with the Muggle trash. Personally, I’m just glad to be somewhere that no one will recognize who I am, where I can drink, and dance, and let myself free for only a little while.

                I know that even with my curls hidden, I am beautiful. Men flock toward me, buying me drinks and dancing close to me. Women watch me, either wanting to be me or to be with me. I don’t particularly care which. I’m a boarding school girl, and no stranger to the softly scented lips of my roommates. Sex is sex, and as far as I’m concerned, sex is good.

                I know that Andi worries about me. She’s only a little bit younger than I am, and somehow has always been the more responsible one of us. She’s the one who remembers to stock up on hangover potions, who never gets too wasted to Apparate us home in one piece. When I made the mistake of taking up with a Muggle boy who slammed me against a wall and took what he wanted, it was Andi who cast the charms to heal me up, who held me and wiped away tears I would deny under the strongest of Veritaserum. Sweet Andi, who watches me now as I apply the Glamours that will cover the steadily sinking cheeks, the darkening circles beneath my eyes. She’s the only one who knows what I do when no one else is looking.

                She whispers a sobering charm, cleansing the bulk of the alcohol from my blood. “Bella, baby, you’ve got to slow down,” she tells me, and I nod.

                “Yes, yes,” I mutter. “I get too high, I get too drunk, I’m just too fucking much. I know, Andi. I can’t fucking help it, alright? I need it, and I don’t have much time left.”

                She watches me, and I barely hear the whispered incantation of a calming charm. The anger evaporates, and she holds her wand steady as she dismisses the charms on my hair. She redoes the Glamours on my forearms, covering the scars crisscrossing over themselves there. More importantly, she covers the skull and snake, the Mark that binds me to the Master.

                I hadn’t meant to do it, not really. I had followed along with those of my year. The Dark Lord was gathering a new order, to cleanse the plague of new blood threatening to pollute our society. When the time came to pledge loyalty, I had knelt before him and pledged it. Pain like nothing I had ever felt before ran through me. I thanked a childhood at my mother’s whims for the ability to refrain from crying out. He had commented on this, had praised my stoicism, had mocked the men around me for their own cries. That night, curled up in Andi’s bed with her arms wrapped around me, I had cried long and hard. That was three weeks ago.

                “Bella,” she says softly, and I turn in her arms, laying my head against her shoulder. I am exhausted, and the effort to remain standing suddenly seems like far too much.

                “Hold on to me, Bella baby,” she tells me, and I do as I am told. She must know that I cannot walk, because she closes her eyes and I feel the pressure of Apparition. A moment later, we are in her bed, and she is tucking the covers around me. “Shh, love, Andi’s got you,” she tells me, and I settle once more into her arms. We’ve slept like this, wrapped around one another, more nights than not this summer. I left school a broken wreck. The final night of my time there, I had injected heroin into my veins for the first time.

                The following morning, I had woken in an unused classroom with blood on my thighs, and fingerprint bruises circling both wrists. I had no idea who it had been. I still don’t. I’m not sure I want to. Andromeda found me, scrubbing my skin raw in the Prefect’s bathroom. She had healed the injuries, and I had calmly refrained from asking how she knew those charms even existed, much less how to cast them.

                I have sex at the clubs, in bathrooms, back rooms, hallways, and dimly lit alleyways. I don’t care how my body is used. I need to feel it, to be the one choosing it. Even if it takes a bucket of Muggle alcohol to allow me to relax, I need to be wanted, to be chosen, if only for a little while longer. I know that I will not live long in the service of the Dark Lord. A war is coming. I know that if I cannot prove my worth I will be little more than spell fodder, disposable at best. I decided that night, after the pain of the Mark finally faded, that even if I could not prove myself an able fighter, I would make myself valuable in other ways. 

                I know that I am an excellent duelist. Growing up in our home doesn’t allow any other choice. Yet I don’t know how long I can hold it together. The darkness in my mind grows, and only Andi knows the battles I fight daily. She has healed the marks from my blade, has held me as I shake in terror from panic attacks that come out of nowhere. They call it the Black Curse, and I know it is coming for me. Our mother is insane, has been since my earliest memories a sadistic monster incapable of love, even for her children, save perfect baby Cissa, blessed not to look a thing like the rest of us and thus perfectly safe from Mother's rage. I know that the same madness is coming for me. I know that my soul will fade away and leave behind a maniac. I made Andi promise me, years ago, that if it happened to me, she would cast the Killing Curse, rather than let me become our mother.

                “Bella,” she says again, and I feel her hand running gently over my face. I feel her wiping away tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “Come back to me, love.”

                I nod, opening my eyes and looking at her. I don’t know if this is normal; don’t have anyone to compare it to. We are sisters, yet we are more than that. Never has there been anything sexual, even we aren’t crazy enough for that, but there are nights like this when it is as if we are one soul. She holds me close, whispers the words of comfort I need so desperately, and I cry there in her arms. As the dawn begins to light the windows of her room, she Summons a small crystal phial.

                “Drink, Bella, love,” she tells me, and I comply, swallowing the draught she buys for me from sources she refuses to reveal. It is an invigoration and restorative draught potent enough that I will not tire again until well after midnight. I can make it through the day with the demons in my mind locked behind a veil. The darkness is held at bay through this tiny phial of who knows what, and for one more day, I can pretend that I am still sane.

                We rise then, and stand once more before the mirror as she casts the spells to hide my indiscretions. She covers the darkening circles, hides the sunken cheeks, and spells away the sharp ridges of my too prominent collar bones and ribs until they are not visible through my clothing. “Promise you’ll try today?” she asks me. I nod, knowing that the continued weight loss worries her more than she is willing to admit. If I am honest, it scares me a bit as well. I just can’t seem to bring myself to eat. When I do, it feels as though I am swelling up like a Muggle balloon, and I am ill more often than not. I attribute it to the curse, and to my continued descent into what I am certain is familial madness. I know that I will not be able to hide it forever.

                I haven’t told Andromeda why I need the potions, why I need to fight it. She knows that when it becomes overpowering, I will expect her to hold her end of the bargain. What I cannot tell her, absolutely will not tell her, is that I must stay sane enough to protect her from Mother’s wrath until she is out of this house. I know, deep down, that my beautiful, sensitive Andi cannot withstand Mother’s worst rages. She is an incredibly gifted Healer, and I know that someday she will be one of the finest at St. Mungo’s. However, no one tells you that even the best Healer cannot heal themselves. Andromeda can patch me back together from Mother’s worst. She has since we were too young to carry wands. She cannot, however, put herself back in working order, and I know that for all she has done for me, I owe her this much. I will stay here, accepting my share and hers until she is old enough to get away. Mother has long been too insane to tell us apart thanks to the blessing of matching curls and nearly identical faces.

                She has only one more year at Hogwarts. At the end of this summer, I will move into my own flat, far from Mother and her vicious wand. I can return holidays, to spare my little sister what I can. “Bella,” she calls once more, and I drag myself back to full consciousness, looking into those eyes that are as if I am staring into my own.

                “Come on, love, we’re expected shortly. Keep it together for me, Bella,” and with that, she takes my hand in hers and squeezes it gently, before pulling me into a desperately needed embrace. She whispers into my ear, “I’m buying tonight.”

                With promises of all I can drink when evening falls once more, I follow my sister, my perfect reflection, out of her rooms and back into the home where my mother reigns and the rest of us fight to survive.


End file.
